HiFi World Reviews 2001 Turntable

REVIEW
HI-FI WORLD
Born In The
David Allcock auditions the brand new 'entry level'
turntable from American analogue specialist Basis
Audio, the 2100 Signature...
B
ack when the hi-fi world
was dominated by one
product, namely Linn’s
Sondek LP12, one Mr AJ
Conti decided he wanted
a turntable for his then
growing high end audio store. This
was just a part time pursuit, as his
day job involved him developing components for the aerospace industry
(where an error or component failure isn’t merely inconvenient, it can
be fatal). Eventually, he decided that,
the standards currently applied in the
turntable industry just weren’t good
enough for his purposes, so the story
goes, and duly decided to design
a turntable on a completely clean
sheet, using the very finest materials,
engineering and manufacturing facilities available to him...
The result was the Basis Gold
Debut Standard. It was a redoubtable
design - a heavyweight belt drive
suspended subchassis turntable using
a unique fluid damped suspension
system, a power supply manufactured
by Krell no less, a 9kg platter and
an interchangeable armboard which
precisely locates on three pins
allowing a number of armboards to
be setup with arms and be dropped
in, precisely aligned. With all this
mass, and the best of everything in
the turntable, it was never going to
be cheap, and when it finally reached
the UK in 1991 it cost £6,500,
and the current Gold Debut, the
Signature, costs £10,000.
AJ Conti was of course the
founder, president and designer of
Basis Audio, and has done every one
of his company’s products since then,
including the new 2100 Signature you
see here. It’s the entry-level model
in the Basis range, and is notable
for being a suspended turntable,
but not a suspended subchassis
design, because the whole turntable
is supported on four fluid damped
suspension pods.
These pods are machined from
a solid billet of aluminium, and each
pod contains a spring under a shaft
HI-FI WORLD MARCH 2007
which has a paddle attached
which runs in the silicon fluid
contained within each pod.
An oil-filled bearing well is
then bolted into the middle
of the acrylic chassis, the
four pods are screwed in
to the chassis and finally
the tonearm is mounted.
The motor is held in a
heavy, damped steel box,
and is a synchronous
AC model which has its
magnet assembly modified
by Basis to minimise
cogging and lower noise.
A standalone type, it is
supported on elastomer
feet, affording it a high
level of isolation from
both the bearing and
the critical stylus/vinyl
contact point. This
motor drives the
platter via a precision
ground flat belt. Each
platter and finely
toleranced bearing
assembly is carefully
matched to one
another during
assembly. The
resulting turntable
weighs 11kg and
measures a svelte
424x381x140mm,
so it fits on the
top plate of
most equipment
racks with ease.
Whilst the
2100 Signature
appears to
arrive as a
kit of parts,
assembly is
straightforward
thanks to both the
superb fit and finish
of each component,
and the excellent
instructions. Assembly
of the turntable takes less
than thirty minutes and is
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"the Basis placed musicians far beyond
the room boundaries with astonishing
delineation in both planes..."
a delight. Installing the
arm is equally effortless
thanks to an ingenious
collet which screws
onto Rega mount arms,
which then bolts
into place using the
locking screw in the
turntable’s chassis.
I elected to use
a Roksan Nima,
as this not only
offers outstanding
performance for
the money, but it’s
also an excellent
cosmetic match
in its acrylic/
aluminium finish.
The actual setup
of the arm took
longer than
the assembly
of the turntable, but I had the
combination ready to go from box to
playing music in a little over an hour.
SOUND QUALITY
Compared even to the lofty
standards of those in our November
06 turntable group test, the 2100
Signature was on an altogether higher
level of performance. Indeed, it is an
exceptional sounding device, but not
a forgiving one - if you’re looking for
a turntable to flatter poorly pressed
or damaged records, look elsewhere.
However, given a decent tonearm
such as the Nima (or Basis’s own
stunning Vector Mk. 3, to explore the
2100’s capabilities), mated to a fine
pickup such as the Benz Glider L2
or Music Maker Mk. III cartridges I
used, it’s capable of disarming levels
of performance.
I started with Sting’s ‘Englishman
in New York’, and from the
first notes of Branford Marsalis
saxophone, a huge three dimensional
soundstage opened up where
the front of my listening room
used to be. Even with
the modest Roksan
Nima the Basis placed
musicians far beyond
the room boundaries with
astonishing delineation in both
lateral and depth planes. The
focus of these images was also
outstanding - none of the images
were smeared in any plane, instead
each was portrayed in the correct
scale relative to the other, with
palpable space and air between each
performer
A startling example of this deck’s
precision came via the Nima and
the Benz Glider L2 combination. I
was listening to the jazz classic, Dave
Brubeck Quartet’s ‘Strange Meadow
Lark’, where the first minute or so
of the track is a piano solo with
Dave Brubeck playing. While a piano
started playing in the right corner of
my listening room, the left channel
was so quiet I thought there was a
fault, but as soon as the first brush
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fast, and this turntable could stop
just as quickly with apparently zero
overhang to bass notes. The precise
start and stop points were so clean
and well defined, no matter how
complex the bass line became, and
the 2100 Signature simply refused to
be caught out.
Regardless of whether the
instrument used was purely
electronic or the acoustic bass
on ‘Englishman in New York’, the
dynamic range of this deck left me
speechless. Recordings I thought
I knew well suddenly gained an
injection of energy and drive, yet
THE BASIS STORY
Despite relative obscurity until recently in the UK, Basis has now been in
business for twenty years. The company is the brainchild of one man, A J
Conti, ex-aerospace engineer and part-time proprietor of a high end audio
dealership. Legend has it that he was unable to work out why the basic
practices he was taught in the first year of an engineering degree course
were not being applied in the turntables he was selling. Frustrated at the
limitations he perceived in products he was offering to his clients at the
time, he decided to re-examine all the accepted practices in turntable
design to see what improvements could be made, if any. He decided to
design and build his own turntable, which would be immune from external
vibrations, would be engineered to exacting standards and offer total speed
precision. By the end of 1985 he had the very first prototype, and in 1986
he sold one of his turntables to a retail customer.
This turntable, now christened the Basis Gold Debut Standard, offered
several radical innovations, including a fluid damped suspension system
which damped resonance to 4Hz, a completely sealed oil well bearing
which is maintenance free, a heavyweight platter which is dynamically balanced with lead ingots beneath the platter, a high precision motor driven by
a Krell designed and manufactured power supply, and a drop-in arm board
mounted on three pins. Word about this new turntable spread amongst both
dealers and enthusiasts in the USA and Basis started to take off, and the
use of a Basis turntable at CES brought about even more orders, so in 1988
he made the decision to leave his job in aerospace to devote himself full
time to Basis.
The original Gold Debut has remained in production to this day, currently in its fifth version, and this was joined in 1989 by the Ovation, a smaller
variant on the Gold Debut Standard. The Ovation is the only model to have
ever been discontinued in Basis twenty year history, but updates are available to this day. The 2000 Series was introduced in 1996, a new series
using a somewhat simpler design but still using fluid damped suspension,
starting with the 2001, joined the next year by the 2500 and the 2800 (a
vacuum hold down variant of the 2500) with the smallest deck in the range,
the currently unavailable in the UK 1400 introduced in 1998. In 2001 Basis
introduced its first tonearm, the Vector, two years later this was redesigned
with the new Basis audio cable and was renamed the Vector Mk 3. Later
that year all the Basis turntables we redesigned and re-released as the
Signature series with improvements to every major component. At the end
of 2005 the 2200 Signature was introduced along with the 2100 Signature.
This year, Basis introduced its most ambitious turntable yet, the formidable
180kg Work of Art, this is going to cost in excess of £60,000, and has been
designed as A J Conti’s final statement in vinyl playback.
REFERENCE SYSTEM:
Benz Glider L2 and Music Maker III cartridges
Roksan Nima tonearm
Basis Vector Mk.3 tonearm
Klyne System 7 PX 3.5 phonostage
Krell KRC-3 preamplifier
Bryston 3B-SST and 14B-SST power amplifier
Martin Logan Vantage loudspeakers
Hyperion Sound Design HPS-938 loudspeakers
this was not the kind of exuberance
I encountered in the Clearaudio
Solution, instead this is simply
allowing the full, natural range
captured on the vinyl to be heard
unrestrained. Vocal performances
were rendered with stunning
transparency and naturalness, vocals
from Sting, Laura Branigan and
Basia were all outstanding, the 2100
Signature seemed to eradicate all the
mechanics and electronics between
the listener and the recording, the
sound was so direct and immediate,
you could almost feel the energy
from the vocals in the listening room.
Likewise, acoustic and Spanish guitars
had startling speed and definition, but
once again the immediate connection
between listener and music was
there.
High frequencies had both
astonishing speed and clarity, yet
without a hint of ringing, harshness
or aggression. Regardless of whether
the recording was resolutely
analogue, such as the Dave Brubeck
Quartet, completely synthetic like
Kraftwerk, or somewhere in between
such as with Propaganda’s ‘1234’, the
high frequencies were never less than
superb. The 2100 Signature is truly
VERDICT
capable of performance across the
Superlative build and sound makes this
one of the finest turntables available at a
board.
realistic price.
CONCLUSION
To my ears, the new 2001 is one
of the most accurate ‘real world’
turntables around. With totally
unlimited budgets, film stars and
footballers will find better, but back
in the realm of the just-aboutaffordable this is an outstanding
machine. Although £3,100 is not an
insubstantial price, I feel this deck
represents value for money, as there
is nothing else at the price that
I’ve heard capable of this level of
performance.
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BASIS 2100
SIGNATURE
£3,100
Select Audio
+44 (0)1900 818 060
www.basisaudio.com
)
on cymbal was heard from Joe
Morello’s drum kit, I realised this
was just an example of the extraordinary quietness and separation this
turntable can achieve.
Whilst the drum solo at the end
of ‘Englishman in New York’ has a
substantial dynamic range, it was the
formidable synthesiser bass line of
‘Aero Dynamik’ from Kraftwerk’s
‘Tour De France’ which proved truly
startling, whether played through
the Hyperion HPS-938 or Martin
Logan Vantage, this was bass you
could feel. It had incredible control,
the transient attack was lightning-
FOR
- astonishing sound quality
- consistency of performance
- build quality
- ease of setup
AGAINST
- stiff competition
MARCH 2007 HI-FI WORLD